U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy pushed for tighter regulations that may have prevented the nationwide deadly meningitis outbreak tied to a Framingham compounding pharmacy but was stopped cold by a well-financed industry group.

“The reaction of the compounding pharmacy group was to mount a very aggressive lobbying campaign,” said a former Kennedy staffer. “They identified pharmacists in key districts and sent them to lobby members.”

The industry group shunned requests to shape legislation and waged an “unprecedented” campaign to kill the draft bill, the former staffer said.

The late senator’s bipartisan legislation, the Safe Drug Compounding Act of 2007, would have given the federal Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate compounding pharmacies, which are now monitored by states, and to require sterile drug mixing.

Framingham-based New England Compounding Center, which federal officials said is the source of fungus-contaminated steroids that have killed 14 people and sickened 184 in 12 states, was only inspected after complaints, according to officials.

Compounding pharmacy groups opposed the legislation to give the FDA wider authority, according to a 2007 letter the groups sent to Kennedy and two Republican co-sponsors.

“We strongly urge you to reconsider introducing this draft legislation,” stated the letter from the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists and eight other trade organizations.

The academy has spent more than $1 million lobbying lawmakers in the past decade, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

“IACP prematurely issued an all-out assault on this proposed legislation,” said academy executive Sarah Dodge, who told the Herald that in retrospect, the industry should have worked with Kennedy. “However, IACP generally frowns upon federal involvement in what has traditionally been a clear-cut state regulatory issue. ... IACP wanted to keep that authority and related enforcement tools in the hands of states.”

Arthur Levin, director of the Center for Medical Consumers, said consumer advocates sent their own letter in support of Kennedy’s bill, but the compounding pharmacy industry, which the ad-vocates estimated had ballooned to a $2 billion business by 2007, defeated their efforts.

“They have a huge amount of lobbyists. They give money to politicians. We didn’t have that. Sen. Ted Kennedy had a lot of influence, but obviously the bill didn’t get enough support,” said Levin, who signed the letter.

“What you have is a loophole for these pharmacies to grow into national distributors who were producing the same things as the regulated industry for a lot cheaper. (Consumers) are saving a fortune, but no one is making sure the product is safe.”